


in the end, we'll be alright

by galacticashaya



Category: South Park
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Making Out, SO MUCH FLUFF, idek at this point help me, singer songwriter au, way too much fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-12 23:50:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12971106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galacticashaya/pseuds/galacticashaya
Summary: words hold weight. more weight than craig had ever bargained for.





	in the end, we'll be alright

**Author's Note:**

  * For [twitchytweek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/twitchytweek/gifts).



> Thanks to Twitch (@tweekers) for this beautiful AU. The Singer Tweek / Songwriter Craig AU is their brainchild and I feel very blessed to have been given the opportunity to write it.
> 
> This is literally my first time writing Creek so please forgive me if the characterizations aren't right.

“You’re really shit at this.”

“Shut up Craig!”

The living room of Tweek’s small, cramped apartment teems with laughter, mismatched, out-of-season Christmas lights twinkling in kind to the positive atmosphere where they’re situated against chipping grey walls. Tweek and Craig are both holed up on the floor with an assortment of bagged snacks and a cheap bottle of strawberry wine, attempting to push their way through a writing session gone horribly, horribly wrong. Craig can’t stop snickering at the hot mess that is Tweek’s writing ability, and Tweek seems more interested in rooting around for a bag of chips that he hasn’t opened than suggesting solutions to Craig for his conundrum of a missed song submission deadline. Tweek settles on Cheetos.

Craig grins to himself at Tweek’s rebuttal, his face obscured by the ear of his ever-present hat. He’s spread out generously next to Tweek’s crossed legs, one hand propping open his lyric notebook and the other one on one of the napkins Tweek threw at him half an hour ago. Nearly all of them are coffee stained, littered with chicken scratch writing that’s unintelligible, even to Craig at some points. Craig attempts to follow along, pausing at a word that looks suspiciously like “milk”; Tweek pelts a Cheeto at his head.

“I really fucking tried, okay!?”

“Tweek, milk doesn’t rhyme with discontent,” Craig points out, shifting the napkin over for Tweek to look at. Tweek moves closer to peer down at it, his maroon beanie slipping forward slightly on his forehead. From this close, Craig can make out the light smattering of freckles over his nose, and the sticky residue left where a bandage was placed a few days ago. Tweek’s thigh is pressed far too close to Craig’s face and the only thought currently running through Craig’s distracted mind is “bite it”. Chaotic evil indeed.

“That doesn’t say milk! That says… fuck. What does it say?”

Craig snorts into his elbow whilst Tweek flips the napkin upside down, his head tilted to the side and his eyes drawn into thin, eerie slits. Powdered cheese dust rubs off on the cloth, tinting some of the words an unnatural, fluorescent orange. “Listen,” Tweek huffs out after a second, pushing the napkin into Craig’s face who starts swiping at the air at random, vision filled with stained paper, “you’re the writer. You’re supposed to make it work.” “I can’t ‘make it work’ when you write in hieroglyphs you fucking ponce.” Craig eventually swats the napkin away, catching Tweek’s wrist and pulling him down with a thud onto the carpet. Tweek kicks at him with the sole of his boot.

“You’re a—a fucking ass,” Tweek wheezes, tufts of blonde hair misaligned over his face that give him the appearance of a baby chicken. A soft, pale shoulder pokes out from where his sweater got pulled down in the tussle, a cluster of birthmarks and a burn scar looking like translucent constellations and nebulas that are barely contained within the universe that is Tweek Tweak. Craig slaps a napkin over it for some semblance of decency, and Tweek frowns at him. Balancing his chin in his hand, Craig’s face remains impassive. “Not my fault you write like a two year old.”

Tweek’s expression falls slightly, his brows coming together in a manner reminiscent of a kicked puppy. Craig’s stomach twists itself into a knot at the sight, acutely aware of the growing taste of strawberries climbing up his throat. “Is it really that bad?” Tweek asks after a moment, fingers worrying at the edge of his tattered pullover, “I _was_ trying.”

“It’s not… bad,” Craig placates hurriedly, suddenly feeling like the shittiest person alive, “it just lacks direction. It’s a lot of mismatched concepts. Which is fine if like… it’s like a personal art piece, but. The point of music is to usually capture people in the moment, you know? To look into their souls or some shit.”

Craig looks down to the array of napkins and paper leaflets underneath them, contemplating what to say. “I mean,” he admits quietly, “you’ve already got the voice for it. God fucking knows you could read the phone book and you’d have a million hits by tomorrow morning, but it’s just as much about what you say as how you say it.” Craig pointedly doesn’t watch the way Tweek rolls in closer, or how his breath smells richly of strawberries and artificial cheese when it ghosts warmly over his hand.

“How so?” Tweek questions, resting the side of his face on his interlaced fingers and watching the muscles shift minutely in Craig’s face. “Like. Remember the first song I ever heard you cover?” Tweek scrunches his nose, trying to bring the memory to light, and Craig sighs. “Everything I Own, by The Front Bottoms.” “Oh shit, yeah!” Tweek’s face lights up in recollection, a bright grin splitting his cheeks. Craig begins reciting the lyrics off by heart, semi-lost in the memory of Tweek’s boney hands strumming over a bright green electric guitar.

“Let's keep it quiet, keep me honest, keep me true. Keep me in love; keep me believing it's with you.”

Tweek is quiet, listening to Craig’s gentle, nasally voice rasp over the words. His quiet Colorado lilt lends itself easily to the silence, warmed by the late evening sun and the good company in the room. “Maybe it’s harder for someone who’s so easily expressive to understand,” Craig suggests belatedly, when his voice has stopped crackling over lyrics that aren’t his own and his heart is hammering heavily beneath the navy blue of his sweater, “but when you’re in control of everything, when everything sounds monotone in your voice to everyone else, how you say stuff matters. It’s not enough to say I love you. You have to paint the picture. You have to… you have to let them know.”

Craig watches as Tweek contemplates this, gaze lost to the grooves of his hardwood floor. Oak wood shines dully under the sun rays pouring in from the living room window, littered with food crumbs and dust mites here and there; band fliers are plastered to the shag rug underneath the coffee table, shaded permanently white from the number of times Tweek’s dunked it in bleach due to bug infestation paranoia. It’s a testament to how far gone Craig is for this boy that he’s helped him do it on more than one occasion.

“How do _you_ let them know?” Tweek eventually whispers, and Craig swears that his eyes could light up the room from how fiercely they glow. Tweek moves his arm so that their hands bump softly, veiled bone against veiled bone; Craig finds it impossible to avert their gazes. “I…” He squeaks out, cheeks tinted slightly pink. Tweek is patient, the knuckle of his index finger dragging over the side of Craig’s palm. Craig begins to shake when he talks, and he’s not sure if it’s from performance nerves or from the steady touch of Tweek’s hand. “I don’t know. I never really got the opportunity. I’ve been… It’s just been me and my writing, for a really long time.”

Tweek huffs, the corners of his eyes upturning. “Come on, Craig. I know you’ve got something written in that book that isn’t meant for you. How am I going to know what you mean if you don’t show me?” He shifts his head momentarily in the direction of Craig’s notebook, and Craig tries to think of any excuse possible not to divulge the numerous ballads he has tucked away in there to Tweek’s prying mind. He comes up frustratingly short.

“It’s nothing great,” Craig tries, teeth burrowed into the inside of his lip. Tweek rolls his eyes, kicking Craig in the leg again. “You’re my fucking writer, Craig. Don’t pull that shit. Show me. Come on, I’m like… the last person in a position to judge you. Have you seen me?” Craig forces a laugh; luckily it isn’t as horrid sounding as he thought it would be, but still. The point remains that Craig’s hand is still shaking when he reaches for his notebook, the pages rattling as they turn until he finds something suitable to share. Tweek, if he notices, doesn’t say a thing.

“The way my knuckles bruise keeps the ephedrone from fading, mosaic nebulas colliding every time you take a breath. I always wonder if your mind could ever process why it’s raining when I’m screaming into silence for a better cure than death.”

Tweek’s ministrations stop mid-recitation, mouth parted so slightly Craig feels the sudden need to kiss it closed again. He breathes through his nose, tries to count to three…

“Who’s that for?” Tweek asks, as though they’re not the only ones in the room. It isn’t pressuring, like anyone else would be. It’s just curious, in the simple, sweet way Tweek has always been since Craig’s had the chance to know him intimately. Or, rather, as intimately as friends could get. “Nobody,” Craig says hurriedly, closing the book up. 

“Craig,” Tweek starts, his tone apologetic. “It doesn’t matter.” Craig tucks the book underneath his curved torso, as though hiding it from view will reverse the damage he’s just done to the atmosphere in the room. Tweek looks at him for a moment longer before rolling onto his back, gazing up at his own stained popcorn ceiling. The radiator in the corner rattles to life, in its half-hour attempt to heat the room despite the fact that Craig feels as though his face has caught fire. Jingling metal and the sound of Tweek’s breathing overtake Craig’s hearing in a cacophony of noise, making it nearly startling when Tweek speaks into the void.

“Whoever you wrote that for… they’re really lucky.”

“What?”

Craig blanks, completely taken aback, and Tweek begins fiddling with the bottom of his sweater again. “I’m. I’m just saying, Craig. That’s a lot of… y’know. It’s a lot, in two lines. If that was me… I’d feel really lucky to know someone cares about me that much.” Tweek’s eyes dart nervously down to his fingertips, over to Craig’s face, then up towards the ceiling again. Craig doesn’t get nearly enough time to savour the flecks of gold laced into the soft greens of his pupils, or the way they shimmer in the light like they’re born from magic.

“You would?” Craig asks quietly, despite everything in him screaming at him not to. Tweek shrugs indifferently, soft cotton sliding soundlessly across the floor. “Yeah? I mean… Look at me, Craig. I’m a neurotic mess on a good day. I can’t take these boots off because I’m afraid my apartment is going to flood again and I’m going to end up with wet socks and like… f-fucking gangrene. If someone talked about me like that… If they thought about me that way? I dunno.” Tweek shrugs again, his eyes slightly glazed over and a purse to his mouth that wasn’t there a moment ago. “It would make me feel like I’m… like I’m special, I-I guess.”

As if Tweek could be anything other than exceptional. As if, since the moment Craig met him, he hasn’t embodied everything Craig had ever dreamt his partner would be; could be. The mere idea that Tweek could ever envision himself as someone unworthy of love or attention, as someone less than perfect makes Craig’s blood boil; makes the bile from his stomach rise dangerously into his throat until it threatens to choke him.

“You are special,” Craig blurts out, his need to comfort Tweek overriding his self-protective filter. Tweek laughs breathily, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. “Yeah. Special in the way sh-shitty parents and school bullies mean ‘special’, maybe.” Craig is reminded vividly of Cartman, a heavyset, unpleasant boy from South Park middle school that had a nasty penchant for pissing all the wrong people off. It was that same type of character and negativity that undoubtedly warped Tweek’s perception of himself, and Craig finds himself unwilling to forgive it, or enable it.

“You’re… You’re special in the way that snow falls in Florida, Tweek,” Craig assures him, shaking fingers closing over Tweek’s wrist in an attempt to comfort him, “You have the same brightness that… that flowers do in the middle of May. You have the same joy you hear when a baby giggles; the same hope you feel when two total strangers rely on each other in the middle of a disaster. Fuck what other people say. Fuck what your family says, Tweek. I’ve never known _anyone_ that shines as bright as you do.”

Tweek looks at him with something akin to wonder, the twinkling lights on the walls reflecting in an array of diffused, rainbow spheres against the pallor of his skin. His breath hitches, softer and sweeter than Craig’s ever heard it before. “You’re just saying that ‘cause you’re drunk,” he argues, but Craig shakes his head. Tweek’s wrist overturns in Craig’s grip so that bandaged fingers curl around the sides of his palm, a promise of warmth and security that makes Craig pale suddenly with fear. Fear that Tweek might know, that he might judge… that he might leave.

“Craig…” Tweek’s voice is a whisper that Craig’s eyes and ears are shut against, face turned downwards towards the floor. A smooth, gentle hand comes up to cup Craig’s cheek, startling Craig so bad that he has no choice but to open his gaze to the way Tweek is surveying him, as though Craig is a puzzle he has yet to solve. Craig bites down hard on the inside of his cheek, and Tweek’s thumb swipes over the sharp contour of his cheekbone. The space between them is, simultaneously, too close and yet too far apart. Craig’s heart threatens to pop straight out of his chest with the fast pace it beats at, pushing colour up into his cheeks until he’s as pink as Tweek’s mouth is; Tweek’s mouth which is open and supple, and forever tempting.

Craig can’t seem to get out anything except a shuddered breath, and Tweek’s eyes magnetize to his mouth. Almost as if in slow motion, Tweek’s thumb slides down to touch dusty pink skin, inquisitive and demure when it presses into the corner of his lips, down and over the centre, accidentally hitting teeth. Tweek recoils slightly in apparent shock. Craig feels like he might pass out. Or die. Or both.

“Tweek…”

Craig finally breathes, daystars creeping into the edges of his vision. His body is trembling of its own accord, as though having been dunked in a large vat of ice water. All his senses are on high alert and he can’t help but notice how Tweek hasn’t really stopped touching him, or how Tweek seems to move closer every passing second, the palm of his hand sliding to the back of Craig’s neck and tipping his head in until they’re pressed forehead to forehead, noses brushing, Tweek’s eyelashes nearly touching his.

“Tweek,” he tries again, but to no avail. His voice gets stuck in his throat and Tweek’s too focused on brushing their mouths together, as though he doesn’t know how badly Craig wants to throw up. Tweek huffs, bridging the gap between them as easily as saying hello.

“Shut up, Craig.”

The moment Tweek’s tongue touches his, Craig’s body leaves the earth. He feels like he’s floating, a spectre of relief and bliss above Tweek’s singular, awe-inspiring universe. Every slick, wet glide and every hot, shaky breath between them, Craig treasures. Even the strange mix of strawberry and powdered cheddar can’t detract from how blessed Craig feels in this moment. Muted rap music grows in pitch outside the window, speeding by at high velocity before being lost to the expanse of the highway. It muffles the nervous whine Craig lets out when his slack grip on Tweek’s wrist slips amidst the blonde grabbing at his sweater. Craig blindly reaches for Tweek’s head, unable to believe they’re truly kissing without tangible proof, and he knocks off Tweek’s maroon beanie in the process. His touch fills with the feeling of soft, silky hair.

Nervous, constantly-worrying teeth are strangely still when Craig licks into Tweek’s mouth of his own accord. Tweek’s adam’s apple catches at the height of his throat, bobbing when Craig presses into it with the barest of touches; sucking on his bottom lip, teeth nipping and trying to trap the taste of Tweek within him, as though afraid it won’t ever happen again. Tweek, for his part, doesn’t seem keen on letting Craig stop. He bends easily to everything Craig offers him, taking matters into his own hands when it isn’t enough anymore. Knees knock into the hardwood floor with unpleasant force, barely registered as Tweek pushes into Craig’s space with his whole body, assuming and hot.

Craig isn’t expecting it when Tweek rolls them over, or when he slots a thick thigh between his lanky, boney ones. A bandaged hand presses itself unassumingly to Craig’s exposed hip, coloured latex making the hair on his body stand completely on end. He can’t seem to catch his breath, fingers gripped terrifyingly tight in the back of Tweek’s sweater as he pulls at Craig’s bottom lip. Craig is embarrassingly hard far too quickly, pressed stiff against the meat of Tweek’s thigh and attempting not to let his eyes roll into the back of his head when Tweek’s denim-clad knee slides forward over slick wood and bumps their hips together.  
In a moment of blissful relief, Tweek hides his nose under Craig’s ear. It hits Craig then how dizzying a difference this is to last night, where he lay awake on Tweek’s couch listening to him snore and imagined a future where he and Tweek could lay together, tucked close and safe away from the world.

“You always say just the right things,” Tweek suddenly whispers, breath ghosting down the expanse of Craig’s neck. He bites behind Craig’s ear briefly, and Craig can’t help the way he moans, more breath than sound, or how he pulls Tweek’s sweater up enough that bits of their stomachs press together skin-to-skin. Tweek’s nose drags along Craig’s cheek until it bumps together with his, and Craig shudders, mouth open and eyes closed. “Jesus,” he gasps out, a rose flush high on his cheek bones. He chases Tweek’s mouth in spite of himself, and Tweek permits him a chaste, tongueless kiss before backing off, leaving Craig a needy, hot mess.

“You’re always so good to me. I should have known.”

Craig’s fingers tug belatedly at Tweek’s hair, causing the younger blonde to keen softly. “I didn’t want you to know,” he admits, his chest trembling with the effort it takes to get words out in a sensical manner. “Why?” Tweek asks, eyelashes drooping heavily over heated eyes whilst he waits for Craig to speak, to move, to do something. His gentle fingers push Craig’s chullo off his head and onto the floor behind him, mussing up his raven locks into a tangled nest. “Because I’m too much, Tweek,” Craig whispers, lost to the feeling of Tweek’s thumb brushing over his forehead. It stops as soon as it starts, and Craig is mildly fearful when he meets Tweek’s bewildered gaze.

“Craig… I would give anything to be your version of too much.”

Craig laughs, then. It’s a nervous bubble of relief and joy that rolls in his chest like a wave, salty waves lapping over his ribs and pooling in a mini-oasis in the cavity of his stomach. It’s all encompassing, beautiful, and the best thing Craig’s felt in ages. Shaky hands cup both sides of Tweek’s face, bringing their foreheads together once more so Craig can breathe Tweek in, hold his scent and pray that time stops around them, creating a singularity all their own, full of love, and hope, and music. Swelling violins and eerie cellos, ivory keys that tinkle like stars across a clear night sky, and Tweek’s voice, haunting and scratching like a needle over a vinyl record. Beautiful, timeless music built by both of them, together.

“Maybe we can be too much together.”

“I’d like that.”


End file.
